


Plausible Deniability

by sunshine_states



Category: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Discussion of Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 07:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20111416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_states/pseuds/sunshine_states
Summary: The one where Irina is an especially ruthless angel and Mirnatius is an especially useless demon, but they come to an understanding anyway.





	Plausible Deniability

The nightclub is loud and chaotic, and Irina is quite sure that Mirnatius has done this on purpose. He knows how much she hates modern music. He also knows how easily strobing lights provoke a headache in her corporation. It’s a fragile body, asthmatic and prone to allergic reactions, but one works with what one has.

Euro-pop, though. _Despicable._

She spots him amidst the sea of writhing bodies. The sequined crop-top and heart-shaped shades make him rather difficult to miss.

“Darling!” he crows, waving her over. He’s had his nails done – his talons, really, because even in human form the eagle peeks through – and he’s smiling. “Darling, you’re late! I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Didn’t you,” Irina says stiffly. She takes the banana daiquiri he offers her. “You said ‘a discreet location.’ I wasn’t aware that this qualified.”

“Nobody can hear us!” he shouts over the music. “Look.” Swinging his head around, he bellows into the crowd, “I’m a demon! She’s an angel! She’s here to ask my help and _you mustn’t tell Gabriel!_”

Irina yanks him down. “Are you out of your mind?”

Mirnatius grins at her, gesturing to the club, which to all appearances hasn’t heard a word of it. “See?”

Irina sighs.

“Now, my flower,” says her ancient enemy, sitting down on the neon leather couch and pulling her along with him, “What’s the trouble?”

They met in Heian-kyo first. She took his head off. And after that, it was Adrianople, where he burned her alive in a granary along with a Roman emperor and his men. And the third time, in Morocco, she bested him in combat by dragging him into the dust with her and then crushing his throat with a rock. The fourth time, though, he invited her to dinner, and it seemed…unfair, somehow, to discorporate someone after they’d fed you roast peacock from the tip of their own knife.

That, Irina thinks darkly, was deliberate. Mirnatius has always had a genius for slithering out of trouble. Should probably have been a serpent instead of a bird of prey, but that’s the divine mystery for you.

“I,” she says. She hates owing him a favor. He’s always so unbearably _smug_ about it. “Would like you – to help me.”

“Help you,” Mirnatius says, savoring it. “_Help_ you.”

Irina glares.

“Yes,” she grates out.

“What do I get in return?” Mirnatius asks her. His eyes – an electric green not seen in humankind – glow from behind the heart-shaped glasses. “I do have a reputation to maintain, my dove.”

Irina removes the glasses. Kisses first one eyelid and then the other. He goes still beneath her. She hears a strangled, unnecessary breath and smiles into his hair.

“The pleasure of my company,” she says. Ever so sweet. Ever so proper. An angel on Earth learns quickly, you see. Not everything can be solved with a snap of one’s fingers or an appeal to Heaven. “And I’ll let you keep these.”

She waves the glasses. Mirnatius makes a grab for them, but she leans back and his fingers only skim the edge of her wrist.

“I still have my claws,” he reminds her.

She knows. The marks are still there, silver-bright over her ribs.

“And I have my sword,” she says, gentle as a slow poison.

He knows. There is a starburst scar on his very essence from where she drove her blade between his wings.

“Well,” he says. “I shouldn’t think it will come to that, do you?”

"We’re both reasonable beings,” she agrees.

“What's this favor of yours?” he asks.

“There’s a man in Krakow who beats his children,” Irina says. “Officially, I’ve been forbidden to interfere, but – “

But Miryem had asked. Miryem is brilliant and vicious and kind, but she has no leverage over this man, none at all. Miryem is _resourceful, _though, and Miryem knows an angel. And so here Irina is, seated in the lap of a demon, committing about ten different varieties of celestial treason, all because _Miryem asked._

“Now, why would Heaven do that?” Mirnatius says in mock surprise. “I thought your people had very strong opinions about that sort of thing.”

“Heaven,” Irina says testily. “Has its own definitions of the Good.”

“And those definitions aren’t yours,” Mirnatius prods. The music thuds discordantly around them, but Irina scarcely notices. All she can think is that she is being tempted, _again_, and that Mirnatius should know better by now.

“What they think is none of my business,” she says. “Except insofar as I am given orders. But you – you can work against the designs of Heaven. It’s what they expect.”

“So it is,” Mirnatius says bitterly. His insolent smile lacks its usual sparkle and she wonders again what his name is – not the human one he’s chosen for himself, but the old one, the True one, the one he bore in Heaven. “I suppose you’ll arrive too late to thwart me?”

“Much too late,” she agrees. She can feel a migraine beginning behind one eye. This music. She’ll never understand the appeal.

“And in return?”

She kisses the corner of his lips. His grip on her tightens a fraction.

“You’re using me,” he breathes. “Vicious angel.”

“Contemptible demon.”

She catches the briefest flash of hurt on his face before he laughs, too-sharp teeth flashing in the low light of the club.

“Very well,” he says, dislodging her from his lap and standing up. “But I insist on a chateau this time.”

“A chateau, is it,” Irina says. There’s a warmth under her breastbone. Affection. A strategic error, to feel affection for a demon, and yet she can’t seem to quench it. “And expensive wine too, I suppose.”

“Yes,” he says, slipping an arm around her waist as they make their way out of the club. She allows it for now. “And a new set of clothes.”

Irina hands the banana daiquiri to a passing partygoer and gives him a censorious look. “Haven’t you enough as it is?”

“They keep catching fire.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“You’re a vicious one,” he says. “Remember Morocco? I didn’t see why we should fight, but you – with your rock and your guile –“

She leans her head against his shoulder. The night air wraps around them, cold and beautiful. Winter has always been her favorite season.

“Do you really think I’d do the same today? Have you even been paying attention?”

“You should have Fallen instead of me.”

She struggles not to let her hurt show on her face. Based on the look of wild vindication on his face, she doesn’t entirely succeed.

“You’re selfish,” she says. “Slothful. Surely that’s more than enough.”

“But your _wrath, _my darling, your _wrath,_” Mirnatius says. He whistles, and a cab appears. The driver leans out the window, looking befuddled, and he ushers Irina into the back.

“There is such a thing as _divine_ wrath, you know.”

“I wasn’t here a moment ago,” the cab driver says plaintively. “I was –“

“I’ll pay you for the trouble,” Mirnatius says dismissively, and the driver’s face clears. He nods, dreamy, and begins the long drive back to Mirnatius’s flat. “As I was saying – wrath. How do you know it’s _divine_? I’ve seen you when the library doesn’t have the book you’re after.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Irina says.

"No?”

“No,” Irina says firmly. All these millennia of Heaven growing colder, of Earth, of Mirnatius and his clever fingers tracing her corporeal form, the precious weight of heretical books in her hands, the taste of dust and blood in her borrowed mouth – well, she may be weak and fragile and cruel, but no one can accuse her of being a slow learner. “Justice isn’t _real_, Mirnatius. Not even Up There. If I never stop worrying about the Good, then I will do nothing _good_. And then I _am _a bad angel.”

“Well,” Mirnatius says, after a sharp, startled burst of silence. “Aren’t you full of surprises.”

Irina ignores him. She's had centuries to practice. Tomorrow they will go to Krakow, and Irina will _tragically_ fail to prevent Mirnatius from throwing Wanda’s piggish father from a bridge. She’ll write an extremely contrite report to Gabriel and go on with her existence. But Wanda and her siblings will be free – better than free. Wanda and her siblings will move in with the Mandelstams, and Wanda will become a lawyer like Miryem. Two young woman with a head for technicalities and a burning desire for justice, set loose on all the criminal elements of Poland. Surely that is a net benefit to humankind, and all of it will happen because a louche demon in a sequined crop-top did a cold-hearted angel a favor.

Irina hasn’t believed in the Great Plan since approximately the 15th century, but something about this sequence of events seems almost…divine.

She doesn’t say as much to Mirnatius – he would be deeply offended at the very idea. She does, however, hold his hand all the way back to the flat, and if he squeezes her fingers gently once or twice, neither of them is cruel enough to mention it.


End file.
